LIST OF PANELS

Public policy making and the underlying politics that shape it are undergoing broad and deep changes. These changes are undergirded by various societal, economic and political shifts that are often in contradiction with each other, such as greater demands for economic and racial justice alongside heightened ultra-conservative political movements, and greater demands to address environmental issues and transition to more sustainable societies alongside efforts to shield radical free market principles that create intensive environmental destruction, among others. Amidst these deeply unsettling changes, all sorts of policy conflicts emerge. In the current age, more and more attention has been given to address these changes in ways that are principled, for example, more just, sustainable and/or transformative of political and economic systems (Chambers 2022). Yet, the contradictory shifts raise questions about the meaning of such principles as justice, sustainability and transformation, according to whom these principles are or should be defined (Stone 1989), and about the ways those involved and affected by societal transformations put forward their understandings of these principles. Particularly in times of policy conflicts, a re-politization of previously (seemingly) settled issues often takes place, as well as the (re)-enactment of (new, refashioned or old) normative principles in daily policy practices for a range of actors differently situated in the political arena of policy making.

This panel seeks to create a collective conversation about how all sorts of policy actors use principles (such as justice, fairness, inclusivity, biodiversity, sustainability and so on) in policy conflicts to address these broad and deep societal changes. We are specifically interested in the ways in which policy actors might engaged in “principled engagement” – what we are defining as the enactment of policy principles, which are generally but not always explicitly articulated, in policy action – in order to intervene in policy conflicts and change policy to address specific policy problems.

Based on our objectives, we seek papers that address the following questions:

·       How do governmental actors, non-governmental organizations and private firms define and enact principles in policy practice? How do the interactions of these groups shape the meaning of these principles and their enactment in daily policy practice?

·       How do these actors, thus, shape possibilities for cooperation, collaboration, or even productive conflict within their coalitions or partnerships? Or shape policy action either through social action (e.g., protest, indirect/outsider advocacy) or through engagement with government (e.g., deliberation or direct/insider advocacy)?

·       How do these groups articulate these principles in governmental procedures or other venues created for citizen or stakeholder engagement?

·       How do protest groups and others navigate between political ideas and principles, on one hand, and engaging pragmatically to collaborate to move their agenda’s forward, on the other hand?

·       In more practical terms: how do you enact principled engagement in an arena that is defined by conflict without succumbing to purely self-interested, instrumental action?

To be responsive to the broad and deep societal changes that affect policy conflict, this panel seeks to understand a seemingly paradox: that between the critical scrutinization of current policy/decision making and the aim of pragmatically solving pressing problems of the day, and the role of principled engagement in this process.